Zuill said... And what's up with the piano brace? A bit huggy to the left barline for my taste.

+1, I hate that! It keeps triggering my "proofreading eye," as after a couple of decades of proofreading, my eye is naturally drawn to collisions. I definitely would want a bit more space there. I don't suppose that's possible yet is it?

I totally agree, and no, the distance between braces and systemic barlines are not yet editable for some reason (even though all other bracket types are). I've already raised the issue on the Dorico forum, so I guess it will be addressed at some point.

John Ruggero said...Aside from some problems in this Dorico example that require a bit of user tweaking, I much prefer the overall appearance of Finale using the Maestro font. This looks anemic to me.

Really? I can certainly understand your preference for one font over another, but given the razor thin stroke width of many aspects of the Maestro font, I'm puzzled that Bravura, which is much bolder, would give you the more 'anemic' impression. Then again, maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

I think that it is the steeper note head angle of Bravura, with the resulting loss of ink on the page, that creates an insubstantial effect for me. The fact that the line work is stronger in Bravura makes the note heads recede even more into the background. Here are the first couple of measures in Maestro:

I analysed the file in Illustrator and found out that the brace is not a graphical object but belongs to the font attributes. Therefore if one needs to alter the distance between piano brace and left bar line the easiest way is to add some "air" after the glyph "{" within font table. Fontlab Studio and all other apps could help.

The recent version of Dorico is still under maintenance and for that reason I am not going to criticise the number of omissions. However, it looks as a resurrection or cloning (with huge amount of promises not seen yet) of Sibelius's, however bases on different level and sponsored by "a shark" company as Steinberg._______When I opened this demo in Illustrator there were issues with all upper stem connection. I don't have an idea why. From other hand Inkscape opens the file perfectly._______ It is very personal, but the most unacceptable parts for me remain the shape of the slurs and ties (tie-arcs), the unbalanced line thickness between stems, ledger lines, bar lines; spacing, beaming an so on that were critically acclaimed to address coming problems found within ironically called Software A, B, and C... _______John Ruggero pointed out that the font looks anaemic to him. In fact the problems comes from the harmed balance between staff lines thickness and font characters. _______

And at the end some last words:IMO, it is very humiliating to discus Dorico here since somewhere exist specially dedicated place maintained and propagandised by Steinberg. Did we bit the bullet? What are we doing – taking a revenge because the recent versions of Finale being slow are only dedicated for non-pro new users? Shell we compare two programs that are on different stages of their live and development, specially here?I have criticised MM many times because IMO they are totally possessed by a syndrome called "Ray Charles - Beethoven" – they can't see and can't listen, even that this is crucial for them right now.

Therefore I would say gladly "fair well" to this forum but before that I'like to thank you sincerely to all of you – members and moderators who had helped me during my stay here.Thank you.

John Ruggero said...I think that it is the steeper note head angle of Bravura, with the resulting loss of ink on the page, that creates an insubstantial effect for me. The fact that the line work is stronger in Bravura makes the note heads recede even more into the background.

You might have a point, although I honestly can't really tell if there is a difference in notehead size between the two examples.

Actually, Dorico uses the oversized alternate versions of the Bravura noteheads by default, which are much larger than the Maestro noteheads. The notehead angle of Bravura is a tiny bit steeper, but the difference is pretty much negligible. If you're using Mastro Wide OTOH, those are indeed slightly wider than the Bravura oversized noteheads, and noticeably flatter as well.

I think Wess' assessment of the effect being brought on by wider staff lines is compelling. Bravura obviously need to be used with heavier staff lines than Maestro to balance out it's weight, but perhaps Dorico's default width is a bit over the top. It's easily adjustable, though.

Here is a screen shot comparing the first notes of the Dorico example on the right with Finale (Maestro regular, not Wide) on the left. I wasn't able to make the two examples exactly the same size, but despite this, I think it conveys what I see and possibly what Wess is describing.

The line work, the stems and staff lines, are too thick and the notes too small in the Dorico for my taste. In the Finale, the less angled note heads stand out meaningfully against the staff lines.

I did use a template that incorporates the line settings that were established at Notat.io in doing my example. They are not the Finale Default settings. It would be interesting to see the Dorico example with comparable settings and the wider note head that Knut mentioned to see if it can achieve the same effect as Finale.

John Ruggero said...Here is a screen shot comparing the first notes of the Dorico example on the right with Finale (Maestro regular, not Wide) on the left. I wasn't able to make the two examples exactly the same size, but despite this, I think it conveys what I see and possibly what Wess is describing.

The line work, the stems and staff lines, are too thick and the notes too small in the Dorico for my taste. In the Finale, the less angled note heads stand out meaningfully against the staff lines.

I did use a template that incorporates the line settings that were established at Notat.io in doing my example. They are not the Finale Default settings. It would be interesting to see the Dorico example with comparable settings and the wider note head that Knut mentioned to see if it can achieve the same effect as Finale.

This is the default output of both Finale and Dorico. Exceptions: In both documents, the bars were joined.In Finale, I had to use the resize tool and set it for 85% to match as closeley as possible to Dorico's default size.In Dorico bar 7, it's not possible to replicate the tempo marking at this time. Nothing else was adjusted. (I realize that both need adjustment, but I wanted to see how much more adjusting would be required for each.Please excuse any engraving typos.I posted this on the NATATIO forum

Finale (started with ver. 3.0) using 2012 (2014 has been shelved for its lack of support for older Garritan libraries), putting Finale 25 through its paces.Windows 8.1basically ALL Garritan libraries, plus XSample Chamber Ensemble.

"Art critics suffer from Pigeon Syndrome. Pigeons like to leave their mark on monuments. But at the end of the day, the pigeon remains a pigeon, and the monument remains a monument."